


Hands

by lesbianophelia



Series: And Eventually His Lips [3]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Oneshot, Peeta-centric, Prompts in Panem, mentions of canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta takes some time to think about his hands, and what, exactly, he’s done with them in the arena.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands

To hear his father tell it, Peeta hated having his hands dirty even when he was a baby. He would fuss and cry if anything got between his fingers. 

  
Back when Mr. Mellark was brave enough to stand up for his son, he would try to assure his wife that it was a good thing.   
  
 _Clean hands make for a good baker_ , he would say, laughing good naturedly. _So Peeta here will be good at his job when he gets a little older._  
  
Only, Peeta didn’t end up being a baker, like his father assumed he would. He ended up being a victor. A victor who nearly has a panic attack at the sight of the red paint on his hands.   
  


  
He’s never more grateful for the big, empty house as he is the night that he accidentally braces his hand on the canvas when he’s reaching for the easel. First, he’s concerned about the painting. It’s meant to be of Katniss, in the red dress from their interviews that burst into flames. He’s always painting her. He doesn’t know why. All it does is make him feel pathetic. And obsessed.   
  
Maybe it’s an addiction. Like Haymitch and the alcohol. Maybe that’s why she works her way into nearly every painting and every dream he has. Because he’s running on fumes, it’s been so long since he’s last seen her, and the withdrawals are starting.   
  
But then, when he’s nearly forgotten what he’s done, because he’s been so busy trying to clean up the smudges he’s made, he glances down at his hand, and his palm is covered in dark, thick red. He makes a mess in his haste to stand up. To get away from the area so he can take a deep breath and convince himself that it isn’t real. His pallate falls to the ground, no doubt ruining the pristine while carpet for good, and the water he had been using tips over, as well. But that doesn’t matter.   
  
Nothing matters except for getting it  _off_ _._    
  
  
  
By by the end of the games, his hands were far from clean. Even after the Capitol scrubbed him of every piece of filth and grime and of every scar he got before and during the arena, he stands in the shower for ages some nights, water so hot that it burns against his skin, and wonders if he’s ever going to feel clean again. Like tonight, for instance.   
  
Hot tears are stinging at his eyes, and he pounds his — now clean — fist against the wall. 

  
  
  
He knows that it’s unfair to think of Katniss as lucky. Knows that she’s lived the same hell as he has. But at least her weapon gave her the ability to kill from a distance. She had a bow in the arena, and he had a knife and years worth of practice from wrestling. And he killed people.   
  
He killed people. That’s why he can’t sleep at night.  When it’s her face, there, and not the girl that the careers couldn’t finish off themselves. The one whose name he must have known one but that got lost somewhere along the way, with the hijacking. Or it’s her that’s being caught in a trap that he triggered, somewhere in the streets of the Capitol.   
  
“My nightmares are usually about losing you,” a version of himself — the  _real_ version of himself — had said to her, what feels like a lifetime ago.   
  
Well then. It’s good to know that the two of them have that in common. He turns over on the hospital bed — which is surprisingly hard, considering it’s being in the Capitol — and resolves that he’ll have to talk to the doctor about it tomorrow.   
  
  
  
It makes him laugh, at first, when she kisses his knuckle, but the gesture is so gentle, and so unlike anything he deserves. But she keeps doing it. It’s his thanks for coming up during her nightmare. For waking her.   
  
“Stay,” she demands, the words spoken against the back of his hand. “Please?”   
  
He can’t tell if it is the old version, or the new version, or  _every_  version of him that answers, but even though there’s flour on his hands from the cheese buns he just took out of the oven, he crawls into the bed with her. “Always.”


End file.
